one of the most celebrated investigative journalist of our time bob woodward of the washington post reporter on every president since nixon and he's the author or co-author of a dozen number one best selling nonfiction book. considering what he's covered over the years it's appropriate that he joins me at the historic day adams otel overlooking the white house on next politicking. it's always great to go back to washington especially on a lovely day like today and especially to be with an old friend like bob woodward the pulitzer prize winning journalist work for the washington post since one thousand nine hundred seventy one currently is associate editor author

a co-author of twelve number one national best selling nonfiction books most recently the price of politics that is out in paperback with the many of them that is star a k. out on sotelo kate across from the white house and the executive office buildings over there of as the white house president obama and his family say they have the two weeks prior to his first inauguration the president is approaching the end of his fifth year in office community says when obama at five well george will the columnist said obama's head the worst first year of the second term since nixon i think that it's. overstatement but obama's having trouble now and certainly with obamacare it's not just that the technical website issue it's is it going to work what does it mean to people and whenever there's a change like this a change i think is wise i think people should have health insurance and

whether they're going to make it function for millions of people like they promised we were going to see any second terms when he said in terms get off well. and good question i mean the generally is a bump in the road. but if you look at the world right now i think the world is such a dangerous place all of the if you go from north korea down to libya in egypt and ask questions about china and russia one of the cia people came over recently and said the fuse of instability is lit in about a dozen countries whether it's going to go off this week or tomorrow or five years from now or ever we don't know but just the level of instability these countries that are unhappy with so that that's in addition to all the domestic

problems what keeps you going bob and me you're very successful you don't need the money here is seventy years old you could go watch the dances at least stevenson used to say but can feel one of these of the day it serves these in the most fascinating dancers in the world and if you never get tired of this no because they're always surprises there are always things we don't know and try to dig into them i had the luxury of time to do these long books or projects for the washington post and. you start you think the stories this way and the stories and opposite direction want to get into a lot of current politics but i should ask you about the new owner of the post and what's that like over there because this is been so much the grahams and they're gone what's it like jeff bezos the founder c.e.o. of amazon bought it with personal money so it's not an amazon enterprise. i've

known him for years i think he's the real thing he believes in independent aggressive press he came to the post after buying and told the story about watching the water. gade hearing aids on his elbow with his grandfather when he was about eight or nine and so he he he understands he gets the heritage he gets the sense of obligation isn't this an unusual time to go into a business that they say is going out here it is and it's high risk but he thinks he can do it and if given his tech savvy his sense of out organized things i'm optimistic if anyone can do it he can and let's let's be direct as we always have over the of which the news business is in trouble and there were we've gone through this convulsion in disruption and it would be great to have

a news organization like the washington post so or and get better and better so it becomes something that kids look at regularly something you can happen in a technological age where kids don't read the paper. that's our obligation and it's a big hurdle to get over but i think it's possible because we discover over there in the white house time and time again there are things going on that we just don't know about and when we discover them they're really important to our lives so i think that can be communicated to young people but that's hard on a newspaper guy and a reason to you suggest that a rat's nest of concealment on lies is at the heart of many of the obama administration standards and screw ups you said it on face the nation how bad is it well what i was saying we were talking about the kennedy assassination in the

secret world of you know the cia had contacts with us walden thinks that even come out that we did know of. today and what i was saying is that this secret world of cia f.b.i. national security agency always well we've learned about the eavesdropping on people in this country people abroad like the chancellor of germany merkel this is the the world of concealment and i think it's dangerous i think we need to know more about it what troubles you more present to. knows what's going on and lies or a president who doesn't know what's going on. they're both drawn into the asli and in this case in fairness to obama it's not clear what he knew or

exactly what he didn't know in terms of the eavesdropping on chancellor merkel i think we'll get answers to that and i think they're reviewing that. you know this is all about nine eleven this is even a dozen years after nine eleven bush and obama set up this apparatus to get dad to spy to be very aggressive in the counterterrorist programs friends to yeah you know because germany is a hothouse of terrorist planning and has been in there were nine eleven suspects who spent time in germany so you can see we want to kind of cover the waterfront but it's pretty clear got out of hand and. that everything can't be dictated by nine eleven as it was in the years after the bush years you're intelligence in the navy right i was in communication i was not in jail it's not

and communication about intelligence well it was it was communication about operations more people have have written you know this is a matter of record in the. pentagon in the navy that i was somehow involved in intelligence that said to conspiracy theories about watergate which you know there's just no basis for but i wish i'd been telegin so it would have been much more interesting than what i did as a investigative reporter have you ever honestly or dishonest slee used wiretapping or gained information. in a manner that might be considered out of order no absolutely not he think though he has member i started in the nixon case really and that was all about wiretapping and it kind of had under roma it was negative and to get into something like that

would be just didn't happen now people have given me transcripts of wire taps that other people did that have been used. including nixon's own wiretap in his own office stick cheney told us that he thinks that was snowden. was treason once an enemy of the united states to reveal that when you think you know i wish he'd come to me instead of others particularly the guardian and i would have said to him. let's not reveal who you are let's make you a protected source and give me time with his dad and let's sort it out and present it in a coherent way i think people are confused about whether it's illegal whether it's bad whether it's bad policy. so what he did in it it's pretty

clear he's held some things back and he has said he didn't want to do anything that he deemed harmful now you know clearly broke the law like daniel ellsberg and the pentagon papers broke the law and. we're going to see i wouldn't i certainly wouldn't call him a hero ellsberg is not considered generally in the heroic and disney is because what the pentagon papers showed is massive deception and concealment a rat's nest of lies about the vietnam war. what do you think of russia harbor and snow. you know that's clearly we don't have the greatest relations with putin but if somebody had brought us massive secrets and are standing eighty thousand documents from russia. and they asked for asylum i think there's a possibility we would give that russian woodenly and

certainly the you know knowledge is power and so i'm sure we would love to have something like that what's going on here bob in the city we love. this intransigents this. shutdown of the government is me against you this i'm not don't leave disagree with you i hate you what's going on i think i hope it's not hate i mean that's what it sounds like is that i'm out in california sounds like a it sounds like hate i don't think it's hate i think it is a failure to accommodate and compromise and one of the things i found in the price of politics about good all in all the negotiations between speaker boehner and obama between the white house and the republicans and the democrats is that they don't spend the time to sit down and get to know each other if you ever been goshi

asian in your life few. ever been married a few you get over we're going to answer good answer. you learn in a negotiation that the person on the other side of the table is your best friend because that is the person who can give you what you want and you can give them what they want it takes time it takes listening you see it in these budget negotiations when it gets to into the last hour between mitch mcconnell the republican leader and biden the vice president they can sit down and they have a relationship and they'll say one for you one for me one for you one for me and they don't do this and this becomes armageddon and deadlock i blame both sides but the president's the c.e.o.

of the country and he should find a way to make this work and this is bob woodward one of the truly great journalists of our time we'll be right back. with a. very hard to take. that fact that are right here.

on the planet. think. everybody thought if you. did you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy schreck allmers. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and out of crass cynical we've been hijacked by handful of powerful friends national corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers wanted all to ask i'm tom mark and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the problem. rational debate and a real discussion critical issues facing up to five ever ready to join the movement

then walk in the big picture. that would bob woodward of the washington post about to tell you who he is you're on pluto. give me your over you've interviewed him i've interviewed him you spent more time with him than i have but give me your overall assessment of this man barack obama. he first of all on the positive side i think he really cares about people i think all of this health care. business is about getting insurance for the thirty million people who don't have it i think he is he has a big heart in his second inaugural there's a line that just blew me away where he said our creed is that the little girl born in the bleakest poverty will have the same chance is anyone else

now we know how bleak in the nose how bleak. the bleakest poverty in america is when is that child going to have the same chance as your children my children his children two hundred years but he's stated it as a creed and it's certainly not reachable in his second four years in his presidency but that's in there because he feels that. ideas about upcoming it and there are the is and i've written about this i don't think he has found a way to work his will as president if you you know you knew clinton well as president. reagan well two parties two different outlooks you look at their eight year presidency and they found

a way to work their will and obama has not found that road and that road is always compromising i think our time to find it sure sure and there may be the you know the big unexpected will occur and he'll figure out how to deal with that i think his pain a great price. the economy in this country is much better than probably anywhere in the world and we could have a take off if he would figure out these budget taxane issues and they do it for two months or three months and we're going into this soup again in a couple of does he need luck you know always it's it's great to have luck but if you don't have it and you can't control it is no president no person can't you've got to have a way of saying what are my goals now he tells people privately this summer some

people were having dinner with him and they asked what are you worried about the most and he said unemployment. climate change in pakistan. and unemployment is the right issue to worry about millions of people in this country who can't find find a job that is the great injustice in a democracy and he should work harder i think he cares about it but his end of the bargain the governing bargain is very carefully with the republicans and with the democrats in congress saying this is a plan these are the things we're going to do and we're going to stabilize it and i mean you've chuckled quite rightly so we can you say that you know we're going to do it for two months we're going to do it for three months if he should let that

happen i mean run down some political figures give me a thoughts what do you make of senator cruz i do not know him he put of its stake in the ground maybe in the heart of the republican party in the process so so we'll see him in it. i've never been. in chanted with true believers on the right around the left i think someone like you tried to be empirical and and he's not he's isn't a deal and hillary hillary i think will run i think she's a dynamo i got to know or when she was first lady and she's very focused person people who worked with her in the state department in the white house and other cabinet positions when she was secretary of state for the first obama term across the board give her high marks and say she knew how to manage she knew how to

set reasonable goals and blues those are two yeah that's right is as a senator she was formidable if she made her deals chris christie. we'll see you know it's possible eliminated but remember if we were talking in one nine hundred eighty nine we said who's going to be the next president bill clinton would not have been on our list one nine hundred seventy three jimmy carter would not have been on a list so you know all these things depend but he's got he's got a story line and again to use that word of a political franchise which is very appealing to people now joe biden joe biden underestimated been a key figure in the obama white house on national security and domestic even

you run for think you don't know i mean they'd be of it would be i think he would like to do it he he's got the governing credentials and if hillary doesn't run or something happens there he may be too old in many people's eyes maybe in his own eyes but i think the big if you're looking for a theme for the year it's governing you've got to fix things he got to get things done paul ryan. got to know him when i did the price of politics. a they forced to be dealt with and more of a realist than an idiot log though i think he comes off as an idiot log i think he would be the sort of person who could make a deal with the democratic president if he were say speaker of the house you were his twenty years old i was thirty years old fifty years ago what are your

thoughts reflections as we approach the fiftieth anniversary of that terrible day. i was a junior in college and the day of the kennedy is as a nation that time of it i was in class a french history class where a fessor a yale and he was giving a lecture on the count of french counterrevolution in the terror the period of just hanging people in. and. somebody went up and handed him a note it was you know you never interrupt the professor and they open it up and looked at it and said i've got a note that says president kennedy and vice president johnson had been shot in

dallas pause class dismissed and we all ran over to where there were televisions in the areas and. a member watching walter cronkite announce that john kennedy was dead. what do you think. there's a book out now what might have happened if he were. i guess the biggest question would be you think you've left vietnam you know you don't know any of that what the message i took from the kennedy is as a nation in i think what we need to take in a more general way is truly awful things can happen and you think that a president's in a protective bubble over that we as a civilization are and you know we're protected we were attacked on nine eleven and we haven't really been attacked again and so there's that feeling of invincibility

which i think is a dangerous feeling so i'm. my wife always says i'm a pessimist and i'm always looking that. what's the worst outcome and our late friend edward bennett williams asked him once are you a pessimist he said of course i am intelligent. you're famous a journalist the suburbs the amaze you sometimes get reported about earlier this year you were in the nose in connection with your reporting on seaquest ration and the white house report to be frightened you know they didn't name it or was it like for you when you were part of the neumes what some of the you aboard what i've yeah i challenge them on some things in the book and in the column i wrote for the post and. they got upset and. somebody reported that i sounded like i was threatened i was never threatened got yelled they

had i been used to being yelled at actually you learn things when people yell and we owe the gene sperling who's the head of the economic council and you know yelled and he apologized and. i said don't worry about it i it was my feeling and i said it's not the way to deal with something like this. but you know we made up by been over to the white house to talk to him and he's. he's somebody who had that job for clinton he goes way back like i do and all the white houses you've covered and written about how do you rank this one in the era of. of comply of woodenness well what because i had this luxury of time i can work for eighteen months on one project or a book and then spend a lot and send a long memo to president obama and it appeals to the cerebral side in it of him and

so i sit down and talk to him extensively about how he made his decisions so i haven't had a problem i think. going after people who've really been in so for that i can understand the motive there i think it's just not a good policy the problem is there isn't that there's not enough openness in government it's not that there's too much that you open this and they often feel at so i i think they have a mixed record on this but personally i have to be honest they've been responsive to me when i have questions and wanted to talk to people only a couple minutes on how much of the antipathy toward the president do you think is racial. you know it never gets expressed. openly i'm sure some of it is but there is

a core of people who are just so anti obama and won't give him a break on anything and i think that's unfortunate for him because that. gives him a bunker mentality a little bit better out there shooting at me it's unfair and some of it is irrational and finally do we have a we in a phase with no would books there's no woodward book coming. i don't know i haven't decided yet i'm usually you give me a tip about what you're writing you give me clues once she even gave me that idol of a book and used to go where all we would the book. work and i'm doing things for the post now i think the real most interesting thing in. the gathering of information business whether it be newspapers books television is what's going on with the new ownership of the washington post and anything it age

seventy i can do to help i'm going to focus on that i get us there on a calling you a friend. bob woodward of my favorite people our special guest on this edition of politicking with larry king to follow me on twitter at kings things will see you next time. well. it's technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the future of covered. i know c.n.n. the most n.b.c. fox news have taken some not slightly but the fact is i admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate.

that was funny but it's close and for the truth and might think. it's because one whole attention and the mainstream media works side by side the joke is actually on here. ok. i don't. we have a different breed. ok oh yeah because the news of the world just is not this funny i'm not laughing dammit i'm not how. you guys talk to the jokes well handled it makes sense that i got. what's up everyone i'm out in martin this is.